Work starts on Dh18M UAE-funded charity hospital in Pakistan

Abu Dhabi, UAE: The first stone of a US$5 million (Dh18m) hospital in Pakistan, funded by the UAE and named after the “mother of the nation”, was laid at the weekend.

The Sheikha Fatima bint Mubarak Hospital in South Waziristan will be a 50-bed facility dedicated to the treatment of women, children and the elderly in an area with inadequate health care, according to Wam, the state news agency.

The director of the Emirati Project to Assist Pakistan, Abdullah Khalifa Al Ghafli, laid the foundation stone at a ceremony on Friday.

The project is one of seven UAE-funded clinics and hospitals to be built in Pakistan at a cost of nearly Dh63m, UAE officials announced in December.

Mr Al Ghafli said the Sheikha Fatima bint Mubarak Hospital will be built on a 4,330-square-metre plot of land, and will carry Sheikha Fatima’s name as “a show of gratitude and recognition for her highness’s previous and ongoing generous contributions and efforts to support women and children within the UAE and abroad”.

Another of the UAE-funded hospitals will be named after the President, Sheikh Khalifa.

The UAE plans to pay for medical equipment for all of the facilities. It is estimated it will take 18 months to build the hospitals.